Broadband Service in the Bay Area

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Being that I got a 4K TV last fall I decided to bump my broadband speed above 12 Mbps to so I could watch some 4K and developer for it. In this town there is a third provider, Wave, who offers as high as 250 Mbps for what I'm paying now for 12 Mbps. I inquired last fall but after they said they would survey my neighborhood would get back to me. They didn't.

So I tried again on Tuesday and they got back to me yesterday saying they had no plans to provision this neighborhood anytime soon. Thing is their feeder line to the areas they do provision is one block from me. I think I may sleuth this to see if there is corruption or payoffs going on.

[poldy]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
Being that I got a 4K TV last fall I decided to bump my broadband speed above 12 Mbps to so I could watch some 4K and developer for it. In this town there is a third provider, Wave, who offers as high as 250 Mbps for what I'm paying now for 12 Mbps. I inquired last fall but after they said they would survey my neighborhood would get back to me. They didn't.
So I tried again on Tuesday and they got back to me yesterday saying they had no plans to provision this neighborhood anytime soon. Thing is their feeder line to the areas they do provision is one block from me. I think I may sleuth this to see if there is corruption or payoffs going on.

Never heard of them.

Which cities are they in?

They're not in my zip code but you can only search zip codes.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by poldy

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
Being that I got a 4K TV last fall I decided to bump my broadband speed above 12 Mbps to so I could watch some 4K and developer for it. In this town there is a third provider, Wave, who offers as high as 250 Mbps for what I'm paying now for 12 Mbps. I inquired last fall but after they said they would survey my neighborhood would get back to me. They didn't.
So I tried again on Tuesday and they got back to me yesterday saying they had no plans to provision this neighborhood anytime soon. Thing is their feeder line to the areas they do provision is one block from me. I think I may sleuth this to see if there is corruption or payoffs going on.

Never heard of them.
Which cities are they in?
They're not in my zip code but you can only search zip codes.

You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave. They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for around three years. The reply from Wave was if I saw got their ads in the mail then they are available in the neighborhood but I've received their ads for the last three years!

Instead I bumped my U-Verse to 24 Mbps ordering online. It didn't work with my 2Wire 3600 gateway. They sent out a tech yesterday who replaced the 3600 with an Arris. The 3600 was recalled but I never got a notice. He suspected my wiring too but after testing found the speed at where the gateway was connected was the same as right off their box on the house.

He did say for 24 Mbps I would need Cat5 cable and that my current line wouldn't handle 24 Mbps. He also suggested calling their "customer care" for upgrades because those people know the tech and salespeople don't. So I called and got 18 Mbps for what I was paying for 12 before. But here's the thing, when I checked my speed later that evening it was at 24 Mbps then went back to 18 Mbps later. What I'm thinking is maybe some tech wanted to see if 24 Mbps would work on my wiring (which it did) and bound two pair would then not be necessary for 24 Mbps.

[Jeff Liebermann]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave.
They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in
Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for around
three years. The reply from Wave was if I saw got their ads in
the mail then they are available in the neighborhood but I've
received their ads for the last three years!
Instead I bumped my U-Verse to 24 Mbps ordering online. It didn't
work with my 2Wire 3600 gateway.

Didn't work mean no data or not fast enough? Probably no data because
the 3600 is DSL only, which does NOT work with U-verse IPDSL packets.
<https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-AT-T-DSL-and-U-verse-DSL>

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
They sent out a tech yesterday who replaced the 3600 with an Arris.

That would be an Arris/Motorola NVG589.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
The 3600 was recalled but I never got a notice.

Baloney. There was no recall on the 2wire 3600hgv. Google for the
model number and recall and see for yourself.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
He suspected my wiring too but after testing found the speed at
where the gateway was connected was the same as right off their
box on the house.

That's a good enough test assuming that the provisioning doesn't have
you rate capped at a lower speed.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
He did say for 24 Mbps I would need Cat5 cable and that my current
line wouldn't handle 24 Mbps. He also suggested calling their
"customer care" for upgrades because those people know the tech
and salespeople don't. So I called and got 18 Mbps for what I
was paying for 12 before.

Nice. How far are you from the CO or RT? You can guess you maximum
speed from various charts:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=uverse+distance+graph&tbm=isch>
Use the ADSL2+ curves. To get 24Kbits/sec, you need to be less than
1000 wire feet from the CO or RT.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
But here's the thing, when I checked my speed later that evening
it was at 24 Mbps then went back to 18 Mbps later.

That's normal. For the first few days, your line gets tested for
error rates at different speeds. The software will set your maximum
speed for the fastest possible with the fewest errors. Your line will
start out at 24Mbits/sec (the fastest possible) and slow down as the
errors accumulate. I'm not sure exactly how it's done with U-Verse,
but that's the way it's done with ordinary ADSL.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
What I'm thinking is maybe some tech wanted to see if 24 Mbps
would work on my wiring (which it did) and bound two pair would
then not be necessary for 24 Mbps.

If you want 24Mbits/sec, you either need to be very close the CO or
RT, or bond two phone lines together. I didn't know that AT&T offered
channel bonding, allegedly because of a lack of copper pairs. Good to
know.

[Eli the Bearded]

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave.
They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in
Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for around
three years. The reply from Wave was if I saw got their ads in

My mother-in-law uses Wave in San Francisco (Castro area). She is not
the most discerning user of the internet and would not notice most
quality problems, so I can't say if the network has been good or bad.

Her VOIP from Wave has frequent problems and she seems to be talking
with them every two months about issues. Those problems she notices
right away.

Post by Jeff Liebermann
If you want 24Mbits/sec, you either need to be very close the CO or
RT, or bond two phone lines together. I didn't know that AT&T offered
channel bonding, allegedly because of a lack of copper pairs. Good to
know.

AT&T never offered me channel bonding and eventually I switched to Sonic
which did, over the same copper. Sonic has also been a lower bill for
more services. (But I'm not getting even close to 24Mbits/sec.)

Elijah
------
does not want internet from a cable TV company

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by Eli the Bearded

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave.
They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in
Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for around
three years. The reply from Wave was if I saw got their ads in

My mother-in-law uses Wave in San Francisco (Castro area). She is not
the most discerning user of the internet and would not notice most
quality problems, so I can't say if the network has been good or bad.
Her VOIP from Wave has frequent problems and she seems to be talking
with them every two months about issues. Those problems she notices
right away.

There was a Wave outage a month or two ago in the East Bay. One thing about AT&T is they are reliable around here.

Post by Eli the Bearded

Post by Jeff Liebermann
If you want 24Mbits/sec, you either need to be very close the CO or
RT, or bond two phone lines together. I didn't know that AT&T offered
channel bonding, allegedly because of a lack of copper pairs. Good to
know.

AT&T never offered me channel bonding and eventually I switched to Sonic
which did, over the same copper. Sonic has also been a lower bill for
more services. (But I'm not getting even close to 24Mbits/sec.)

One needs to contact AT&T customer care for that as they know set up channel bonding. Their sales people don't. Sonic even mentions channel bonding on their site.

Post by Eli the Bearded
Elijah
------
does not want internet from a cable TV company

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
There was a Wave outage a month or two ago in the East Bay. One thing
about AT&T is they are reliable around here.

What was Wave before it was Astound? Was it RCN or Paul Allen's Charter?
It's so hard to keep up with the corporate musical chairs these days.

[Eli the Bearded]

Post by David Kaye
What was Wave before it was Astound? Was it RCN or Paul Allen's Charter?
It's so hard to keep up with the corporate musical chairs these days.

Wikipedia does a good job with that sort of thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_Broadband

The company was founded by its current CEO, Steve Weed, in 2003, by
purchasing cable systems owned by Northland Communications, Cedar
Communications, and Charter Communications in Washington and
Oregon.[1] It was expanded by acquiring other, some distressed,
cable, telecommunications, and broadband companies.[2][3][4][5]

Elijah
------
wikipedia: cheat sheet of the internet

[David Kaye]

Post by Eli the Bearded
Wikipedia does a good job with that sort of thing.

Funny, I look up a lot of things on Wikipedia, but I hadn't thought to look
up Astound/Wave because I figured that it wasn't important enough to be
listed. Silly me.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by David Kaye

Post by Eli the Bearded
Wikipedia does a good job with that sort of thing.

Funny, I look up a lot of things on Wikipedia, but I hadn't thought to look
up Astound/Wave because I figured that it wasn't important enough to be
listed. Silly me.

When I did a search on Astound several years ago it came up as a Minnesota based company. Looks like Astound took over Wave or vice-versa. Will have to dig deeper

I looked at Cat5 bulk cabling yesterday and can't see why it would be any better than the old three wire line (of which only two are used) that was used for phone wiring in this house. My line from the AT&T box is actually Cat3 which was called "phone cable" back when I bought a spool of it. A 100' spool of Cat5 is under $20 at Home Depot making it not worth going to Fry's to get some.

I may sign up for Netflix 4K and see if it works on what I have now. Everything else 4K seems to require less bandwidth between 13-18 Mbps. I tried a 2 minute preview on UltraFlix which is bargain priced 4K streaming service with older movies from Paramount and Sony and a few new indies. One indie 4K film shot in SF played fine for the preview.

There's not a lot of 4K available at the moment but the other advantage of a 4K TV is how much better 1080p looks upscaled to 4K.

[Roy]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
...
I looked at Cat5 bulk cabling yesterday and can't see why it would be
any better than the old three wire line (of which only two are used)
that was used for phone wiring in this house. My line from the AT&T
box is actually Cat3 which was called "phone cable" back when I
bought a spool of it. A 100' spool of Cat5 is under $20 at Home
Depot making it not worth going to Fry's to get some.
...

Your current phone cable may be Cat 3. Cat 3 cable is rated for 16 Mhz
and has at least 2 pair of wires. If your current cable is not at least
two pair then its probably not twisted at all.


"A key difference between Category 3 and Category 5 cable is the number
of twists in the cable per unit distance. Category 5 is much more
tightly twisted, typically 3 to 4 twists per inch compared to 3 to 4
twists per foot for Category 3. The tighter twisting is more expensive
but provides much better performance than Category 3."

The number of twists helps with preventing other signals from interfering.

Cat 5E is what I would recommend. Cat 6 is even better but it can be a
real pain to put the connectors on.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by Roy

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
...
I looked at Cat5 bulk cabling yesterday and can't see why it would be
any better than the old three wire line (of which only two are used)
that was used for phone wiring in this house. My line from the AT&T
box is actually Cat3 which was called "phone cable" back when I
bought a spool of it. A 100' spool of Cat5 is under $20 at Home
Depot making it not worth going to Fry's to get some.
...

Your current phone cable may be Cat 3. Cat 3 cable is rated for 16 Mhz
and has at least 2 pair of wires. If your current cable is not at least
two pair then its probably not twisted at all.
"A key difference between Category 3 and Category 5 cable is the number
of twists in the cable per unit distance. Category 5 is much more
tightly twisted, typically 3 to 4 twists per inch compared to 3 to 4
twists per foot for Category 3. The tighter twisting is more expensive
but provides much better performance than Category 3."
The number of twists helps with preventing other signals from interfering.
Cat 5E is what I would recommend. Cat 6 is even better but it can be a
real pain to put the connectors on.

Happy to say that yesterday I upgraded Netflix to 4 devices which means I get UHD (4K) and it's working just fine. The wiring to phone jacks throughout the house is 3 wire and when I moved here I had two lines with dial-up on one (DSL was a pipe dream then). That wiring is very robust compared to Cat3 or even Cat5. However I will be installing Cat5 at my leisure so I can go to at least 50 Mbps or more if Wave is allowed to come down my block.

I'm also go for VUDU UHD which has a 13 Mbps required and Hulu which also is 13 Mbps but not available for anything other than the PS4 and Xbox One. Actually I haven't found anyone with those devices discussing their 4K experience on Hulu. Guessing they chose those test on. Most of their "originals" are 4K including "Chance" that was shot here in the Bay Area.

[poldy]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net

Post by Roy

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
...
I looked at Cat5 bulk cabling yesterday and can't see why it would be
any better than the old three wire line (of which only two are used)
that was used for phone wiring in this house. My line from the AT&T
box is actually Cat3 which was called "phone cable" back when I
bought a spool of it. A 100' spool of Cat5 is under $20 at Home
Depot making it not worth going to Fry's to get some.
...

Your current phone cable may be Cat 3. Cat 3 cable is rated for 16 Mhz
and has at least 2 pair of wires. If your current cable is not at least
two pair then its probably not twisted at all.
"A key difference between Category 3 and Category 5 cable is the number
of twists in the cable per unit distance. Category 5 is much more
tightly twisted, typically 3 to 4 twists per inch compared to 3 to 4
twists per foot for Category 3. The tighter twisting is more expensive
but provides much better performance than Category 3."
The number of twists helps with preventing other signals from interfering.
Cat 5E is what I would recommend. Cat 6 is even better but it can be a
real pain to put the connectors on.

Happy to say that yesterday I upgraded Netflix to 4 devices which means I get UHD (4K) and it's working just fine. The wiring to phone jacks throughout the house is 3 wire and when I moved here I had two lines with dial-up on one (DSL was a pipe dream then). That wiring is very robust compared to Cat3 or even Cat5. However I will be installing Cat5 at my leisure so I can go to at least 50 Mbps or more if Wave is allowed to come down my block.
I'm also go for VUDU UHD which has a 13 Mbps required and Hulu which also is 13 Mbps but not available for anything other than the PS4 and Xbox One. Actually I haven't found anyone with those devices discussing their 4K experience on Hulu. Guessing they chose those test on. Most of their "originals" are 4K including "Chance" that was shot here in the Bay Area.

Huh? Hulu is 720p stereo isn't it?

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by poldy

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net

Post by Roy

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
...
I looked at Cat5 bulk cabling yesterday and can't see why it would be
any better than the old three wire line (of which only two are used)
that was used for phone wiring in this house. My line from the AT&T
box is actually Cat3 which was called "phone cable" back when I
bought a spool of it. A 100' spool of Cat5 is under $20 at Home
Depot making it not worth going to Fry's to get some.
...

Your current phone cable may be Cat 3. Cat 3 cable is rated for 16 Mhz
and has at least 2 pair of wires. If your current cable is not at least
two pair then its probably not twisted at all.
"A key difference between Category 3 and Category 5 cable is the number
of twists in the cable per unit distance. Category 5 is much more
tightly twisted, typically 3 to 4 twists per inch compared to 3 to 4
twists per foot for Category 3. The tighter twisting is more expensive
but provides much better performance than Category 3."
The number of twists helps with preventing other signals from interfering.
Cat 5E is what I would recommend. Cat 6 is even better but it can be a
real pain to put the connectors on.

Happy to say that yesterday I upgraded Netflix to 4 devices which means I get UHD (4K) and it's working just fine. The wiring to phone jacks throughout the house is 3 wire and when I moved here I had two lines with dial-up on one (DSL was a pipe dream then). That wiring is very robust compared to Cat3 or even Cat5. However I will be installing Cat5 at my leisure so I can go to at least 50 Mbps or more if Wave is allowed to come down my block.
I'm also go for VUDU UHD which has a 13 Mbps required and Hulu which also is 13 Mbps but not available for anything other than the PS4 and Xbox One. Actually I haven't found anyone with those devices discussing their 4K experience on Hulu. Guessing they chose those test on. Most of their "originals" are 4K including "Chance" that was shot here in the Bay Area.

Huh? Hulu is 720p stereo isn't it?

Stereo, yes and probably until VP9 as AV1 has surround support. But Hulu now is available at 1080p and 4K if you have PS4 Pro or and Xbox One S. Their 4K offerings are their "Originals" and some Bond movies.
https://help.hulu.com/articles/57083698

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave.
They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in
Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for around
three years. The reply from Wave was if I saw got their ads in
the mail then they are available in the neighborhood but I've
received their ads for the last three years!
Instead I bumped my U-Verse to 24 Mbps ordering online. It didn't
work with my 2Wire 3600 gateway.

Didn't work mean no data or not fast enough? Probably no data because
the 3600 is DSL only, which does NOT work with U-verse IPDSL packets.
<https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-AT-T-DSL-and-U-verse-DSL>

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
They sent out a tech yesterday who replaced the 3600 with an Arris.

That would be an Arris/Motorola NVG589.

NVG599

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
The 3600 was recalled but I never got a notice.

Baloney. There was no recall on the 2wire 3600hgv. Google for the
model number and recall and see for yourself.

That's what the tech told me and I found it funny I didn't get a notice and yes doing didn't find anything on it.

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
He suspected my wiring too but after testing found the speed at
where the gateway was connected was the same as right off their
box on the house.

That's a good enough test assuming that the provisioning doesn't have
you rate capped at a lower speed.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
He did say for 24 Mbps I would need Cat5 cable and that my current
line wouldn't handle 24 Mbps. He also suggested calling their
"customer care" for upgrades because those people know the tech
and salespeople don't. So I called and got 18 Mbps for what I
was paying for 12 before.

Nice. How far are you from the CO or RT? You can guess you maximum
<https://www.google.com/search?q=uverse+distance+graph&tbm=isch>
Use the ADSL2+ curves. To get 24Kbits/sec, you need to be less than
1000 wire feet from the CO or RT.

AT&T has a box up a block up the street. The CO is way over a miler away but it they track the distance from that box instead.

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
But here's the thing, when I checked my speed later that evening
it was at 24 Mbps then went back to 18 Mbps later.

That's normal. For the first few days, your line gets tested for
error rates at different speeds. The software will set your maximum
speed for the fastest possible with the fewest errors. Your line will
start out at 24Mbits/sec (the fastest possible) and slow down as the
errors accumulate. I'm not sure exactly how it's done with U-Verse,
but that's the way it's done with ordinary ADSL.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
What I'm thinking is maybe some tech wanted to see if 24 Mbps
would work on my wiring (which it did) and bound two pair would
then not be necessary for 24 Mbps.

If you want 24Mbits/sec, you either need to be very close the CO or
RT, or bond two phone lines together. I didn't know that AT&T offered
channel bonding, allegedly because of a lack of copper pairs. Good to
know.

The tech said to call their customer care for that as they know to do handle the order that way and the sales people don't. For some reason my speed is back to 24 Mbps (and no problems). I should have checked Sonic as their site says 50 Mbps available here for $60 a month and mentions the two pair bonding plus ATT doing the install. The tech said he couldn't figure out why ATT allows Sonic to sell at a lower price than them since Sonic is using their lines.

Post by Jeff Liebermann
--
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
The tech said he couldn't figure out why ATT allows Sonic to sell at a
lower price than them since Sonic is using their lines.

For copper AT&T has no choice. The state PUC requires the local loop be
made available to other DSL companies, which is why AT&T has tried their
darnedest to replace the copper with fiber everywhere they can.

Funny, I was on the phone yesterday with an AT&T tech who told me the
customer's modem was "burned out" because certain web pages did a redirect
to AT&T as a "problem". I told him that if the modem was "burned out" how
was it I could ping to the BBC and Yahoo? I couldn't find any malware on
the computer, but while I was on the line I decided to change the modem's
DNS entries to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and everything worked beautifully. So,
it was either AT&T's DNS servers at fault or there was some malware that I
couldn't detect. When I told the tech that things were working again, he
said, "Yeah it must have been resetting the modem that did the trick." No,
it wasn't. Oh well, at least their techs are better than their salesfolk.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by David Kaye

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
The tech said he couldn't figure out why ATT allows Sonic to sell at a
lower price than them since Sonic is using their lines.

For copper AT&T has no choice. The state PUC requires the local loop be
made available to other DSL companies, which is why AT&T has tried their
darnedest to replace the copper with fiber everywhere they can.
Funny, I was on the phone yesterday with an AT&T tech who told me the
customer's modem was "burned out" because certain web pages did a redirect
to AT&T as a "problem". I told him that if the modem was "burned out" how
was it I could ping to the BBC and Yahoo? I couldn't find any malware on
the computer, but while I was on the line I decided to change the modem's
DNS entries to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and everything worked beautifully. So,
it was either AT&T's DNS servers at fault or there was some malware that I
couldn't detect. When I told the tech that things were working again, he
said, "Yeah it must have been resetting the modem that did the trick." No,
it wasn't. Oh well, at least their techs are better than their salesfolk.

Those are Google DNS. I think I had that on the old gateway and I set it myself.

It think I've figured out why I'm getting almost 24 Mbps from looking up their packages as well as Sonic's where the descriptions are better but 12 Mbps and 18 Mbps are one pair to node and officially 24 Mbps to 50 Mbps are two pair to node. I was wondering why my upload speed hadn't improved going to 18 Mbps but apparently the reason the upload speed is faster on the 24 to 50 Mbps is because of the two pair to node. So the 18 Mbps is supposedly "up to" but probably often over because of the way it implemented but not reliable enough with one pair to sell. Interesting technology.

[Rob Warnock]

<***@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
+---------------
| You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave.
| They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in
| Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for
| around three years.
+---------------

They changed their name to Wave in May 2015:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astound_Broadband
...
On May 1, 2015, Astound Broadband in San Francisco
officially changed their name to Wave.[1]

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_Broadband
...
Wave provides services via their own fiber-optic
network and has approximately 1000 employees.

And before those fiber assets in the SF Bay Area were called
Astound/Wave, they were installed/owned by RCN [nee Residential
Communications Network]:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCN_Corporation
...
On August 18, 2006, RCN announced it was selling its
San Francisco operations, representing 18,000 subscribers,
to Astound Broadband for $45 million.[10]

This entire field is a swamp of startups, build-outs, bankruptcies,
selloffs, and acquisitions.

Even after [at least one] bankruptcy and ownership having been
passed around between [at least two] private equity firms,
RCN is still around... just not around here. ;-}


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <***@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net

Post by poldy

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
Being that I got a 4K TV last fall I decided to bump my broadband speed above 12 Mbps to so I could watch some 4K and developer for it. In this town there is a third provider, Wave, who offers as high as 250 Mbps for what I'm paying now for 12 Mbps. I inquired last fall but after they said they would survey my neighborhood would get back to me. They didn't.
So I tried again on Tuesday and they got back to me yesterday saying they had no plans to provision this neighborhood anytime soon. Thing is their feeder line to the areas they do provision is one block from me. I think I may sleuth this to see if there is corruption or payoffs going on.

Never heard of them.
Which cities are they in?
They're not in my zip code but you can only search zip codes.

You maybe have heard of Astound? They changed their name to Wave. They've been in Walnut Creek and Concord for some time and in Pleasant Hill for a few years. Martinez north of Hwy 4 for around three years. The reply from Wave was if I saw got their ads in the mail then they are available in the neighborhood but I've received their ads for the last three years!
Instead I bumped my U-Verse to 24 Mbps ordering online. It didn't work with my 2Wire 3600 gateway. They sent out a tech yesterday who replaced the 3600 with an Arris. The 3600 was recalled but I never got a notice. He suspected my wiring too but after testing found the speed at where the gateway was connected was the same as right off their box on the house.
He did say for 24 Mbps I would need Cat5 cable and that my current line wouldn't handle 24 Mbps. He also suggested calling their "customer care" for upgrades because those people know the tech and salespeople don't. So I called and got 18 Mbps for what I was paying for 12 before. But here's the thing, when I checked my speed later that evening it was at 24 Mbps then went back to 18 Mbps later. What I'm thinking is maybe some tech wanted to see if 24 Mbps would work on my wiring (which it did) and bound two pair would then not be necessary for 24 Mbps.

So I got my bill yesterday and see that they are charging a monthly fee for "renting" the Arris. Originally they "sold" me the 2wire Gateway but provided a $100 gift card to defray the cost. /-: